


Study

by roselightsaber



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Kyber Crystals, M/M, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 19:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9562787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselightsaber/pseuds/roselightsaber
Summary: Chirrut has been studying up on kyber crystal massage technique, and naturally Baze is his test subject.





	

Baze has witnessed Chirrut’s relationship with kyber crystal before. It had brought them together, in some ways; their hideout of choice as youths with more feelings for each other than they’d known what to do with had been a concealed cavern somewhere beneath the temple, rich with kyber. Chirrut had found it, of course – those inexplicable senses of his had pulled him down into the dark to discover it, then his even more incomprehensible heart had brought him back with Baze in tow, lantern in hand for his sighted companion. Baze remembered so vividly how the other boy had run his sensitive fingertips over the jagged stones erupting from the cavern wall, the sharp intake of his breath, the way the stones glowed faintly for him. The place had brought him such peace and seemed to overwhelm him all at once, until he’d crumpled to the ground with a silly smile of pure bliss on his face.

 _This place is ours, Baze_ , he’d told him. _It wants us here, together._

It was the strongest Baze had ever believed anything. They returned almost daily; it seemed to recharge Chirrut. Baze was certain it wasn’t _only_  the crystal, but that the quiet gave his sharp senses a break, and, he hoped, that his presence helped, too. Those crystal-studded walls had seen their first kiss, Chirrut gasping against him in that same way he had when they’d first visited their special place together. And then he’d laughed, like the kid he was, and leaned back against the wall of the cavern, and told Baze the stones there had been _waiting._ Baze had just gotten annoyed and kissed him again (and again and again) but the thought lingered in his mind. There _was_ something alive about the stones, that much was certain, and it wasn’t much of a stretch to think there might be a sentience there that Chirrut could feel – not because Baze was particularly taken with the crystals himself, but because he never stopped being amazed by Chirrut.

Now, though, he isn’t sure which is making more of an impression. He does know that no one but Chirrut could have convinced him to strip bare and lie prone on a table in the med bay, under the guise of therapy or not. Steam curls from a shallow vessel where Chirrut is pouring water over a handful of round, polished stones, clear to silvery-white, with an iridescent sheen. They glow faintly when Chirrut’s hands come close, testing the temperature. Not unlike himself, Baze thinks with a faint smirk, a thought confirmed when Chirrut dries his hands and smooths them across his bare back, warm and familiar over his aching muscles. His voice is just as soothing even if his words are, as usual, something of an enigma.

“I want you to focus on the energy of the stones, okay? And relax.” Leaning over him, he slides his palms from Baze’s shoulders to the small of his back, pressing lightly into his flesh.

“The energy?” Baze mutters. “You’re the one who feels that kind of thing.”

“I may have a stronger connection, but you are not without abilities.” His tone is instructive, calm, refusing to be lured into an argument just this once. “Besides, this technique is meant to relax your body, but also open your senses. I’ll give you a boost.” He crouches, eye level with Baze even if he can’t truly meet his gaze. “I’ve only just begun studying it myself. But we’ve always been good at discovering new things together, wouldn’t you say so?”

“I suppose so.” Baze regards him with a soft smile, chin propped up on his folded arms. He is, generally, a man of few words, but fewer still when it comes to spiritual matters. He is devout, surely, but the way Chirrut is attuned to the Force is deeper than anything Baze has ever experienced. The chance to explore further aspects of their faith, though, is welcome, and the tangible aspect of this particular course of study has its appeal. “I will gladly receive your guidance.”

“Close your eyes,” He instructs, leaning in to press a kiss to his forehead. “Feel the Force all around us.” Standing again, he rubs down Baze’s back again, pressing more firmly this time “The Force always glows around you,” He murmurs, moving to massage gently up the back of his legs, calves and thighs, stopping at the folded blanket draped across his backside for some semblance of privacy should someone wander in. “I think kyber must look how you feel. Bright and warm.”

Baze breathes deeply. “I can feel it between us, sometimes.”

“Try to find it now.” He kneads the tense muscles at the back of his neck a while, before moving to pick up the first of the stones. It’s only barely damp now, but still pleasantly warm to the touch. Chirrut rolls it between his hands, feeling its energy, something like its personality, even, the unique glow invisible to his eyes but tangible nonetheless. He sets the smooth stone carefully against Baze’s skin, between his shoulder blades, letting the warmth flow into his skin and, he hopes, into his spirit as well.

“Feels good,” Baze whispers. Speaking isn’t a break in his concentration, really; not when the words are directed at Chirrut, at least. The other guides him deftly through the senses he can hardly understand, his voice a beacon through a world he has no idea how to map otherwise.

“Not too hot?”

“It’s good.”

“I picked these stones for this myself,” He goes on, massaging around the crystal before sliding it slowly down his spine to the small of his back. “They can feel intent.”

“Your intent,” Baze realizes, shivering at the sensation despite the feeling of warmth spreading through his whole body. “It feels like _you_.”

“See? You can feel the Force just as I can.”

“When it feels like you,” He laughs softly.

Chirrut selects a second stone. “It’s a start. Focus on it, or on me, or just on the feeling.” He presses the warm crystal against Baze’s skin, tracing along his shoulder blade and applying more pressure this time. “The Force will make itself known to you. Have some faith.”

“I have faith,” He sighs, though his focus now is on the physical sensation rather than the spiritual. He’s sure Chirrut would tell him there’s no difference. There is something about the crystal, though – some essence of Chirrut within its smooth surface that seems to vibrate through him, beyond the tactile. He feels it in his flesh and yet _can’t_  feel it, like it keeps getting away from him even when it’s pressed against his skin. _Focus_ , he tells himself.

“Pull yourself closer to that feeling.” Chirrut’s voice comes to him as if in a dream, heard and imagined at the same time. He leaves the still-warm stone on the sore spot he’d been massaging and begins repeating the process on his other shoulder. “Tell me what you sense, if you can.”

“You,” Baze murmurs. “Your touch and your presence.”

“That’s beautiful,” Chirrut replies, working his hands down Baze’s back within the triangle formed by the crystals. “I’m with you, body and soul.”

Baze sighs as Chirrut slides two more stones over his tight hamstring muscles, one in each hand. Focusing on the crystals, he reaches for some _feeling_ , some sense of the bond between Chirrut and the stones, a mirror image of the faint glow of the Force he can feel between himself and Chirrut. It’s there, though dim to Baze’s senses, but as soon as he even attempts to touch it, the bond grows warmer, more solid, as Chirrut reaches back. He hears the other sigh as  if from a great distance as he rests the stones in his hands in a careful line up Baze’s spine. Each touch of the smooth crystal adds a layer to his sense of the Force, a color into the spectrum or a note into a chord, but neither at once, some other sense he can’t define.

“I feel…something,” He begins hesitantly, unsure whether its worth pointing out when he cannot even begin to explain what that something is. “Every time you put down one of the stones there’s a change.”

“Ah, you’re doing so well…” Chirrut’s praise warms Baze through, and that, at least, is a familiar feeling, firmly rooted in his physical body. “Does it feel good?” Whispered intimately, those words spark a slightly different sensation in Baze, one he tries to push away for fear of distraction.

The warmth coursing through him, around him in that dreamlike way, goes molten hot and he isn’t certain right away if Chirrut is pulling him closer physically or in spirit. The temptation to open his eyes and reorient himself is only tempered by Chirrut’s hands at his shoulders, rearranging the crystals there into the line down his back. Baze sucks in a sharp breath as Chirrut chuckles faintly and the most overwhelming of the heat dissipates, as if he’s just breached above a body of water in which he hadn’t realized he was submerged. “It’s supposed to feel good,” Chirrut adds, no shortage of amusement in his tone. “You don’t have to run away from it.”

It takes Baze four heartbeats, that feel each like an eternity unto itself, to speak again. “It might be too much,” He practically wheezes, and tries to soften his embarrassment with a laugh. “For the first time, anyway.”

Chirrut hums with delight and slips his hands into Baze’s hair. “Now you know how I feel.” His fingertips massage his scalp, a reassuringly tactile sensation that clears away a bit more of the heady veil of Chirrut’s focused Force. “But I didn’t mean to overwhelm, love.”

“It’s alright.” And it is, now that he’s caught his breath again, now that he doesn’t feel quite as much like he’s floating totally unbound. “I trust you.”

“But if I could learn to give you that more slowly…” Baze doesn’t need to look over at him to perceive that playful, excited smile. “Would you like it?” He feels Chirrut’s fingers play over the stones down his back, soft warmth blooming at each touch as if he were making direct contact with his skin.

“Mm. I would.” Baze shifts at last, just a turn of his head, muscles feeling absolutely liquefied.

Chirrut strokes down his neck, over his shoulders, and gives his biceps a squeeze. “Don’t float away, love.”

“Every time you say something like that, it knocks the wind out of me.”

“Because of these?” He carefully turns over the stone closest to Baze’s neck. “Or every time?”

Baze laughs softly, starting to feel again more like he’s just had a massage and less like some mad monk has just tried to exorcise something from deep within him. “That is a good question,” He replies, eyes slowly, slowly opening, placing himself firmly back in the temple, back beneath Chirrut’s hands. “But difficult to answer, as someone has just tied my spirit in a knot and it’s a little _distracting_ –”

“In a knot…” Chirrut scoffs. “If anything, I did just the opposite.” One by one he collects his crystals, leaving just one in the center of Baze’s back. “Don’t tease me. I told you I’m still learning.”

Baze watches him, utterly relaxed despite it all, or because of it all, pleased to be grounded in his own body again though with absolutely no desire to move it. “Not teasing. Not much, anyway.” Adoring is too mild a word for the way he looks at Chirrut, and he knows that the other can feel it. “You are very skilled, my dear.” He isn’t sure if it’s a lingering effect of the crystals, or that his mind is more open, or if it’s pure imagination, but he can feel Chirrut glow at the compliment. “You should share your studies with me more often.”

Chirrut comes close again, sweeping the last stone soothingly over Baze’s skin as if to soak up the residual dreamy energy. “All of them, or the ones that lead to you getting a massage?”

“All of them. With the latter taking precedence.” He arches his back a little, slightly regretful when Chirrut places the last stone back in its container with the others. Gentle hands on him again help soothe the loss, though, and Baze glances up at him. “More? You’ll spoil me.”

“Bringing you back bit by bit.”

“I’m not sure where I’m coming back from.”

“Somewhere where this body is not needed,” He considers, leaning to brush a kiss against his shoulder. “Though when I have you in front of me like this, thinking of such a place feels a little regretful.”

“A blind monk who specializes in kyber treatments and laying on the charm.” Slowly sitting up at last, he coaxes Chirrut close, standing between his knees, for a kiss. “You’re a mysterious man.”

“Am I? It sounds like you have me all figured out.”

“Some parts, certainly.” Broad hands settle onto Chirrut’s waist, fitting like interlocking stones, sculpted for one another. “I hope you’ll continue teaching me the rest.”

“You are a good student.” He leans to kiss the crown of his head. “Study with me tonight. I have more texts on this subject.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“It is _not.”_  He tilts Baze’s face upward though he can’t meet his eyes, smirking. “But I’m certain we can discover something enjoyable. Now get dressed. I won’t be held responsible for relaxing you so much that you shirk your duties.”

Baze groans faintly as he pushes himself to his feet. “I feel stronger than ever. Just – also lazier than ever.”

Chirrut tosses him his robes with a laugh. “I’ll work on that for next time.”


End file.
